Secretive Pentagon think tank knows no bounds

From Vladimir Putin’s body language to the histories of religious warfare, from the development of new technologies to accounts of ancient empires, there isn’t much the Pentagon’s internal think tank won’t pursue.

The Office of Net Assessment, which is headed by a seldom-seen, 92-year-old Nixon-era defense analyst named Andrew Marshall, is just a tiny compartment in the labyrinthine Defense Department, but its interests are vast. In a recent solicitation, the ONA said it’s seeking research about nuclear proliferation, future naval warfare and the use of space, among other topics.

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Usually this kind of work, which costs around $10 million per year, flies well under the radar in a defense budget of roughly half a trillion dollars. Every once in a while, however, the public catches a glimpse of something Marshall and his office are pursuing — most recently, when the Pentagon confirmed it has been spending $300,000 per year to study the body language of Putin and other world leaders.

The ONA’s wide reach makes the office an asset for DOD leaders, advocates say, despite the Pentagon’s acknowledgement that body language analysis of Putin and others hasn’t helped with decision making during the international standoff with Russia over Ukraine.

Indeed, a lot of the ONA’s work never makes it outside the office, said Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby. Supporters argue that it’s still worth doing.

“One of the things that has made ONA so valuable to DOD senior leadership in the past is that it is the one place where ‘orthogonal’ issues — issues that may not obviously appear to affect the department, but that may indeed turn out to have important implications for the future security environment and future warfare that DOD will need to take into account — may be examined,” said Jan van Tol, a retired Navy captain and former military assistant to the ONA.

In a capital that can be preoccupied with winning the day or kicking the can, the Pentagon needs an office pursuing many areas of interest with a long-range view, said van Tol, now a senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

“Some of these may turn out to be ‘dry holes,’ but others may alert senior leadership to some kinds of future concerns that they might never have learned about otherwise via normal organizational and bureaucratic processes,” he said.

Much of the ONA’s work is handled by contractors, including big players such as Booz Allen Hamilton and Washington think tanks like CSBA, which can include alumni such as van Tol.

Many of the priorities described in the ONA’s recent solicitation are becoming recurring themes for Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and the Joint Chiefs. For example, Hagel and other top officials have warned that other military powers could target the constellation of American satellites that supports the services’ ability to communicate, operate drones or target their weapons.

Other ONA-backed studies seem to go much further afield. According to an index of its reports obtained in 2009 by TPMmuckraker, the ONA has commissioned reports with titles that include “The Changing Images of Human Nature” and “Biometaphor for The Body Politic,” as well as more standard-sounding fare such as the “Role of High Power Microwave Weapons In Future Intercontinental Conventional War.”